00:00Just four miles from the centre of Leeds and bordered by the River Air on three sides,
00:06Rodley Nature Reserve is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
00:10Since opening on the 28th of July 2000, a dedicated band of volunteers have seen the site flourish,
00:17together with support from numerous groups and individuals.
00:20Home to an array of animals and host to many community events throughout the year,
00:25it continues to grow as a valuable community asset.
00:28I think the peacefulness of it is something which people do appreciate,
00:34and it's also a very safe site, so people can come on their own and not feel any problems.
00:42There were four main areas, the lagoon, the duck marsh, the reed bed and the wet grassland.
00:49We're able to pump water or release water from the river right through all of them to keep them topped up.
00:56In those early days, we used wind pumps, and they were fraught with all sorts of problems.
01:02And these days, we rely on electric pumps.
01:05Lots of things, really, have had to be improved for car parking and all that sort of thing for the number of visitors.
01:12We've no way of counting how many.
01:15We keep asking for somebody to volunteer to go with a clicker and watch them coming in.
01:21I first came down to the reserve probably about eight years ago.
01:25I've lived locally for a long time and I've walked past the gates many times and never came in.
01:31And one day I decided to come down and I was amazed by the scale of things that go on here.
01:36One of the things I think makes this place so special is that we're quite close to the city centre,
01:41but when you come down here, you feel like the city's a million miles away.
01:46It's so calming and still.
01:48I love the fact that there's an awful lot of stuff going on in the world and you come down here
01:53and the nature is just carrying on, doing its own thing.
01:57It's not bothered by the news.
01:58And it just is a very calming, peaceful place for people to come and meet like-minded people.
02:04I know everyone that comes gets an awful lot out of it.
02:06Little knowledge or more knowledge, it doesn't matter because there's people in the hides
02:11who will be more than happy to share their knowledge with people.
02:16We've also got the dragonfly ponds which were created in 2004
02:20and we're now classed as a dragonfly hotspot by the British Dragonfly Society.
02:26Birdlife-wise, we have a very extensive bird list now.
02:30It's good at all times of the year.
02:31I've been volunteering about 15 years.
02:34We offer lots of things for families and everything we do is free so it's accessible to all
02:39which is obviously, you know, in today's world is a big thing.
02:43And we're still, after 25 years, getting new visitors coming in, new families coming in
02:48and we do lots of school visits and through the school visits we're introducing the children to nature.
02:53They're going home and telling their parents, grandparents and bringing them back
02:57so it's, you know, it's a full circle thing.
